Pastor Ponderings #168: *Pretending*

I asked a few friends what kids liked to play. The answers were different for boys and girls. Boys liked cops & robbers, cowboys & Indians or superheroes. Think about how much they learn about right and wrong, justice, proper application of force, courage, negotiation and fair play. Girl games were different. They liked to play house, doctor, veterinarian or school. Games that tend toward nurturing and care, emotional sensitivity, memory and self-awareness. Little brothers inevitably end up being the family pet. Here girls exercise the skill of integration, or as little brothers call it, manipulation.

The Oxford dictionary defines pretend as: speak and act so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not. When children play pretend, they gain many valuable skills: creativity, language development, problem-solving, abstract thinking, social skills, emotional stability, confidence, self-awareness, courage, motor skills, memory, flexibility, and, if playing with friends, the all-important skill of surrender. We should encourage appropriate pretend play.

Related to the word pretend but different in meaning is Pretentious: attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed. For example, I once worked with a window & door crew. My job was to do the caulking - apply the sealant around the window capping. When a customer would ask what I was doing, I’d say I was applying a one-part, thermoplastic, elastomeric sealant. I was being pretentious.

When children pretend, are they also pretentious? In 1808, Sir Walter Scott wrote a line in a poem which gives clarity to this confusion: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Pay attention to intention. If you self-inflate to look good, pride is the motive. If in humility you aspire to be like Christ, all is well.

Are we being deceptive when we choose to respond to our spouses lovingly in moments when we don’t particularly like them very much? Are we two-faced liars when the responsibility of parenting overwhelms us, but we stick it through regardless because we love our kids? Certainly not! We all recognize that love requires us to sacrifice, often putting up with those we’d rather put down.

Are we hypocritical monsters because we bear the title of little Christs while on occasion acting more like demons? How does a declared saint, child of God, redeemed soul, new creation, righteous and sanctified being, holy and peculiar person justify these titles while finding him/herself so far from the mark? (peculiar may feel like the only accurate description!) Even if our motive is upright, how do we reconcile the Grand Canyon between our position in Christ and our practice on earth?

Romans 4:17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;

God plays pretend. This gives hope to those who often feel artificial in the pursuit of holiness. He sees us as holy, in Christ, while we are still becoming holy. God calls us righteous, in Christ, while we are still becoming righteous. God isn’t troubled by our notion of time. He has a foreknowledge of what will be. This includes what we will become once in our glorified state, in Christ.

We are told that in pretending we lose ourselves little by little. This is the best possible outcome for the Christian. We must decrease while Jesus increases. God plays pretend with the intention of producing a new reality for the faithful. Christians are continually becoming in practice who they already are in Christ positionally. May God grant that we intend to pretend until Christ is formed in us. Not pretentious, just pretending.